Short Hills, N.J.-based mutual fund Fairholme Capital Management has been bulking up on EchoStar Communications, adding more than 6 million shares of the satellite TV provider to its portfolio in the past three months, according to a securities filing on Jan. 9.
Fairholme said it owns a total of 21.9 million EchoStar shares, or 10.5% of the satellite TV provider’s outstanding stock. At the end of September, Fairholme owned about 15.3 million EchoStar shares.
Fairholme, led by former Salomon Smith Barney analyst Bruce Berkowitz, follows a similar strategy to investment guru Warren Buffett — Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway is Fairholme’s largest single holding — and has been a big backer of EchoStar.
The satellite-TV giant has been one of the fund’s top three holdings for several years.
EchoStar completed a split into two separate entities — Dish Network and EchoStar Holding — on Jan. 2.
